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WoW feral druid tanking gear

Part of my Warcraft Tips series – hope it’s of some use to you! Do me proud, put those warrior tanks to shame!

Druid tanks don’t need to worry so much about T0/T1/T2 sets. It’s a blessing and a curse – we don’t get stat bonuses, but we do get to look different :)

Here’s the gear I was looking for at L60. Note that this gear list is around WoW version 1.11 so if some changes have occurred (like in 2.0) then some of it will be out of date. Most of it still holds true at this point though!

Update: best feral druid enchant?

I just had a conversation in the comments with Psyx that might be of interest. (s)He asked:

+25 AGI enchant for cat huh?
Last time I checked AP is most important for cat, and since AP is derived from strength, I would go for 15 STR on ur catweapon.

Well, like everything else, that depends!

Yep, +25 AGI gives you by far the best bang for your bucks in the form of +dodge +armor and +crit as well as +APÃ¢â‚¬Â¦ yes only half the amount of STR but youÃ¢â‚¬â„¢re getting 10 more points!

If it were a question of 15 STR vs 15 AGI then itÃ¢â‚¬â„¢d be a question of whether youÃ¢â‚¬â„¢re going to be in cat most of the time or not.

IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢m tanking 90% of the time and only rarely dpsing. For both cat and bear we get such huge benefits from AGI that makes it more worthwhile considering the bigger number.

So back to which is betterÃ¢â‚¬Â¦

15 AGI vs 15 STR – take AGI if you ever tank with that weapon. Use 15 STR only on a dps cat weapon and only if youÃ¢â‚¬â„¢re PvE only. If you PvP you gotta go for the AGI.

25 AGI vs 15 STR – take AGI unless you are dps cat STR spec and will *never tank*. If you are crit spec cat then stick to AGI for +armor +dodge +crit. If youÃ¢â‚¬â„¢re really rich and lucky with drops, get both.

On trinket choice I quote the Feral Druid Equipment List post:
Quote:
Mark of Tyranny and Smoking Heart are the two biggest Bear trinkets. Many Druids switch to Enchanting and raise skill to 265 just to make the Smoking Heart (you can drop Enchanting afterwards and continue to equip the trinket). For Cat, Blackhand’s Breadth is good but I would choose the Mark of Tyranny over it. It is easier to find a substitute for offensive trinkets than for defensive since there are so few that raise Armor directly and since we take such great advantage of them.

Weapons Enchant:

For both Cat and Bear druids there is only 1 choice: +25 agi to 2H. Anything else is criminal given the benefits we get from agi (crit, dodge, armor, attk power in cat).

If you’re using 1H then there is +15 agi available, however I’d be interested to see a 1H that beats our 2H options, before BWL or AQ at least.

Yep, +25 AGI gives you by far the best bang for your bucks in the form of +dodge +armor and +crit as well as +AP… yes only half the amount of STR but you’re getting 10 more points!

If it were a question of 15 STR vs 15 AGI then it’d be a question of whether you’re going to be in cat most of the time or not.

I’m tanking 90% of the time and only rarely dpsing. For both cat and bear we get such huge benefits from AGI that makes it more worthwhile considering the bigger number.

So back to which is better…

15 AGI vs 15 STR – take AGI if you ever tank with that weapon. Use 15 STR only on a dps cat weapon and only if you’re PvE only. If you PvP you gotta go for the AGI.

25 AGI vs 15 STR – take AGI unless you are dps cat STR spec and will *never tank*. If you are crit spec cat then stick to AGI for +armor +dodge +crit. If you’re really rich and lucky with drops, get both.

The agility enchant for cat form not only gives you free dodge and a smidgeon of armor, it gives you noticably greater damage output than the strength enchant.

Unless you have a huge crit rate already (brushing up against 40%), then the +25 AGI enchant is far better. 25 AP and 1.25% crit is equivalent to a little over 50 attack power when examined in a vacuum.

STR is useful for both cat and bear forms. AGI is almost useless for bears. The slight increase in dodge does not counter losing AP and DPS. My armor is over 17,000 as it is and I had to sacrifice stats to get there. There are bears who mt nef and have close to 18,000 armor.

So more STR is incredibly useful to make up for the lack, since all our aggro abilities count on AP and DPS.

If you plan on tanking, go highest armor you can. Then +stamina followed by +strength. Then +To hit, +agility and +to crit.

If you plan on being cat form, then +25 agi is fine, since you will need more dodge and crit. But, the rest of your gear should more then make up the STR. You will be facing mobs you can dps down quickly. Since you don’t have much armor, you’d better kill the mob quick or get used to the barkskin/heal/bear routine and hope there aren’t many adds. With +15 str, you will kill much faster and faster kills means he stops damaging you faster. With +25 agi, you will kill slower and take more damage, unless you happen to crit often and dodge often during the battle.

One easy thing you can do to test is to get 2 identical vendor weapons with no stats on it. On one, put +25 agi and on the other put +15 str. Then fight the same level mobs 4 times and average the time taken to kill him and how much health you had left. Then switch weapons and repeat. Then repeat in a different form. So if you did the first series using cat form, try bear and do the same. Then make a chart and compare. It takes some time and money, but you will know for sure how each enchant effects your performance in a real way. And since I’m an enchanter and my guildies send me tons of mats anyway, I can spare time to test using my enchants. It’s the same thing I did with Lifesteal vs. Crusader.

And although wardrobe and other addons are nice, sometimes, you may only have one weapon you use for both dps and tanking, so switching out weapons may not be possible. Most druids will have one tank/dps weapon and one healer weapon. Some will have 3 separate weapons along with 3 separate armor sets. So you will commonly see Unyielding Maul with +15 STR for tanking/dps or Warden Staff if he’s wealthy or lucky as hell with +15 STR and something like Hammer of the Grand Crusader with +22 INT or if they are in a good guild, Jin’do’s Judgement with +22 INT.

I have 3 sets myself. Full Cenarion, Hammer of the Grand Crusader with +22 INT; Warden Staff with mish mash gear with +15 STR; and full LC PVP gear with Bonecrusher and +25 AGI/Nat Pagle’s Fish Terminator with +15 STR.

The only time I’d consider +25 agi is if I have enough str in the rest of my gear to make up for the lack of +15 str on my weapon.

Strength outweighs Agility in damage production for cat until we approach 3000AP. At that point one must then mind the crit cap. Agility also encumbers this as it also adds doge which just pushes more crit off of the attack table. So the only other consideration to be made would be+ hit as this will reduce your misses and bring those crits back onto the table. Against boss mobs 6% is the max you will gain and once again we are bacck to using Str to gain in DPS, sustained or otherwise. So all said and done, agility is NOT a choice any cat druid should ever make.